PESHAWAR: The Federal cabinet in its meeting on Monday approved the proposed amendments in the National Constitution aimed at the merger of FATA in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Following the merger, the seats for the KP Assembly will increase to 147 from the current 126.
In connection with representation to FATA, KP Assembly introduced a new clause 1A suggested in Article 106 of the National Constitution.
The new clause states, “the seats for KP, as referred to in clause (1), includes 18 general seats, four seats for women and one seat for non-Muslims in respect to FATA” provided that the election for the said seats would be held within one year of the general elections 2018.
The distribution for the 18 general seats is not yet finalised.
However, constitutionally Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is the considered outlet for fixing the criteria regarding the distribution of these parliamentary seats in any administrative unit of the country.
Moreover, following the merger with KP, FATA will lose the eight berths in the Senate’s Upper House.
In this regard, an amendment in clause (1) of Article 59 suggested, “for the words, ‘one hundred and four’ the word, ‘ninety –six’ shall be substituted and paragraph (b) shall be omitted. Additionally, in clause (3), paragraph (b) shall be omitted and after clause (3) is amended as aforesaid in clause 5, the word ‘the Federally Administrative Tribal Areas’ shall be omitted.”
According to a proposed amendment in Article 246, the FATA affairs especially legal and judicial could be controlled by the president.
Moreover, in article 246 a new paragraph “d) was proposed, which states the relevant authority mentioned in Article 247 of the Constitution and after the election in respect of FATA referred to in clause (1A) of the Article 106, the appropriate Assembly in whose legislative competence the matter falls.”
Similarly, the Article 247 already applies in KP’s Provincially Administrative Tribal Areas (PATA) and comprises of all three former princely states of Dir Swat and Chitral. It now comprises of Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Swat, Shangla, Buner and Chitral Districts along with Malakand Division, Kohistan and mountainous Tor Ghar districts of Hazara division.
The provincial assembly is lacking its rights and power regarding legislation in these areas, which is likely to happen with FATA after the merger.